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Sin against the body

Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2016 10:00 am
by RoyHobs
20 years of studying under the banner of "Evangelical Christianity", I've never heard someone ask this simple question -- Why is sex with a harlot a sin against the body?

Paul makes a special point to say that this is a sin like no other. Having sex with a harlot is a physical joining to that harlot. Paul deems it unrighteous. Why is it a violation against the body? For what reason?

Question -- is it a sin against the body to have sex with a virgin? You can draw your own conclusions.

http://www.areyoumarried.wordpress.com has an interesting and very revealing conclusion.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2016 8:31 pm
by Michelle
Are you the writer of the blog?

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2016 8:41 pm
by jaydam
His case is hard to follow at times. Ultimately, he seems to equate the act of loosing one's virginity to becoming married. However, from what I read in the law, upon taking someone's virginity who was not otherwise engaged, the virginity taker THEN paid the father and was to marry the woman.

The verb tense does not say, because he married her (past tense) when he took her virginity, he is then to pay her father because he became man and wife with the daughter. Rather, subsequent to taking her virginity he is to pay her father and marry her. The marrying and taking of virginity are seen as two separate acts.

In an agrarian society, the woman's worth came from her purity. The marriage follows the virginity takers devaluation of the woman by taking her virginity, and does not occur because he married her through the act of intercourse.

Also, he misses the point of Matt Slick's opinion, which is to show that the Bible does not find an issue with not being a virgin as a marriage show stopper, but ensuring one is not bound by a covenant - and shown above, I don't believe the Bible supports intercourse as the covenant moment.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2016 10:51 pm
by morbo3000
jaydam wrote:His case is hard to follow at times. Ultimately, he seems to equate the act of loosing one's virginity to becoming married.
This was a total head-trip on me as a teen. Because of the teaching that you unite yourself with someone in sex, and it is like marriage, so if you end the relationship it is like the pain of divorce, I didn't have the courage to end a relationship that should have ended. Something similar has just happened with my teen son. He had sex with his girlfriend and then used it to justify that their relationship was like they were married. That hasn't served him well either. (he's 15. See previous discussions.)

I think we need to have a deep respect for the historical setting of these types of texts, as you have shown. There are lots of great reasons not to have sex before you are married. Including biblical reasons. But this one is more complicated than the purity people make it out to be.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 6:03 am
by RoyHobs
Jaydam,

Why is 'sex with a harlot' a sin against the body? What makes it a defilement of the flesh? Could it be that the harlot is already 'one flesh'?


Would it be a sin against the body to have sex with a virgin girl?

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 9:11 am
by crgfstr1
I believe for the most part it is because of the spiritual and symbolic aspects.

The virgin is the faithful followers of God who have kept Him as their only God that they worship.

The adulterer are those that belong to God but worship other religions for their own pleasure or ignorance.

The whore/harlot are those that belong to God but worship other religions or bring ungodly idols into their worship for financial (or political) gain.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 10:29 am
by backwoodsman
RoyHobs wrote:20 years of studying under the banner of "Evangelical Christianity", I've never heard someone ask this simple question -- Why is sex with a harlot a sin against the body?

Paul makes a special point to say that this is a sin like no other. Having sex with a harlot is a physical joining to that harlot. Paul deems it unrighteous. Why is it a violation against the body? For what reason?

Question -- is it a sin against the body to have sex with a virgin?
Read it a little more carefully; that's not what Paul says. Harlot, virgin, or anything in between, if it's fornication, it's a sin against one's own body. (I Corinthians 6:18) The reason is in v19-20: Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Why the obsession with sex? Such an obsession makes it hard to follow the command in v20. Wouldn't the time and energy be better spent following Jesus?

You didn't answer Michelle's question: Are you the writer of the blog? I think you are, as he seems to have the same obsession.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:26 pm
by morbo3000
This feels like a link-bait question. I once worked for a guy who constantly asked me questions about theology, because it served his purpose to give his answers. It wasn't a discussion. That's what this feels like.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:55 pm
by Paidion
As I understand it, the very meaning of the verb "sin" is to do that which harms other people or oneself.

Sex with a harlot (πορνεα "pornea") is sin against one's own body because of the likelihood of contracting a venereal disease.

That may not have been what Paul had in mind, but it is a practical reality.

Re: Sin against the body

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:11 pm
by steve
Whoever it was who wrote the blog, it is an example of the kind of "Christian" writing that reeks of arrogance and bitterness toward persons of a contrary viewpoint. As much as I wanted to do so, I couldn't read it to the end. The spirit was too abrasive—making it difficult to respect the writer's qualification to speak to a biblical issue—much less to persuade an audience to embrace a controversial moral position. It is too bad the author could not write in a manner that would be more tolerable to serious inquirers into his thesis.